Museum Critiques - National Association for Museum Exhibition

Museum Critiques:
The Museum of Jurassic Technology
by James Bradburne, Diane Perlov, and Nina Simon
Critically Wonderful—
Wonderfully Critical
The Museum of
Jurassic Technology
by James.M. Bradburne
AADipl MCSD
been carefully preserved, often in their original
settings, including the Schloss Ambras in
Innsbruck, the Green Vaults in Dresden and of
course the famous Habsburg Kunstkammer of
the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, which
is due to re-open in 2012 after a decade-long
closure.
H
One of the extraordinary museums in America
is a cabinet of curiosities: David Wilson’s
Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles.
This museum would win the approval of even
the notoriously crusty museum critic Kenneth
Hudson (2001) in every respect: it is marked by
the personality of its founder, it is a completely
coherent whole, and it is ruthlessly intelligent.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology experience
actually begins with the adventure of finding
it. Finding anything in Los Angeles can be a
challenge, especially for a foreigner, and the
Museum of Jurassic Technology looks from the
outside like an abandoned diner. Its address is
9341 Venice Boulevard in Culver City, some
four blocks west of Robertson Boulevard in
what somebody seems to call the “historic
Palms district of Los Angeles,” but even locals
cannot often reliably give directions to the
museum. Once found, however, the experience
rewards the effort made to get there.
istorically, cabinets of curiosities
have not been popular in America.
John Choate, one of the founders of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,
wrote in 1880 that the museum’s
plan was not to establish a mere cabinet
of curiosities which should serve to kill
time for the idle, but... to gather together
a ...collection of objects illustrative of
the history of the arts in all its branches
...which should serve not only for the
instruction and entertainment of the
people, but should also show the students
and artisans of every branch of industry...
what the past has accomplished for them to
imitate and excel.
Museums were meant to be uplifting,
educational and useful, not frivolous.
There are of course exceptions to this
widespread disdain for cabinets of curiosity:
Joaneath Spicer’s brilliant permanent
installation of a Cabinet of Curiosities
at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore
(opened 2005) gives visitors an exceptional
opportunity to explore the culture of curiosity
and the mindset of the late Renaissance, and
the City Museum in St. Louis could not be
called anything but a contemporary cabinet
of curiosities. In Europe, the collections of
important historical cabinets of curiosities have
James Bradburne is Director
General, Fondazione Palazzo
Strozzi, Florence, Italy. He may
be contacted at j.bradburne@
fondazionepalazzostrozzi.it.
Diane Perlov is Senior Vice
President for Exhibits at the
California Science Center.
She may be contacted at
[email protected].
Nina Simon runs the Museum 2.0
design firm in Santa Cruz, CA.
She may be contacted at
[email protected].
If you would like to comment
on this article or others in this
issue, please log on to the NAME
listserv at http://groups.yahoo.
com/group/NAME-AAM/
Even before entering the exhibition
itself, the visitor encounters a tiny shop
full of wonders, ranging from porcelain
thimbles to do-it-yourself music boxes.
In addition to extraordinary objects, the
shelves are arrayed with publications by
authors including actor and magician
Ricky Jay (a large selection) and cultural
critic Lawrence Weschler. And of course
there are the exquisite exhibition catalogs
published by the museum itself, including:
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The MJT (the dark facade) is situated on busy Venice Blvd. next to a flooring store. Courtesy of Diane Perlov.
(continued from page 87)
… in the Museum
of Jurassic
Technology the
improbable is
probably true,
and the likely is
likely to be false—
and nowhere will
you ever be told
which is which.
On the Foundation of the Museum: The
Thums Gardeners and Botanists; Geoffrey
Sonnabend: Obliscence, Theories of
Forgetting and the Problem of Matter;
Bernard Maston, Donald R. Griffith and
the Deprong Mori of the Tripsicum Plateau;
Garden of Eden on Wheels: Selected
Collections from Los Angeles Area Mobile
Home and Trailer Parks; and No One May
Ever Have the Same Knowledge Again:
Letters to Mt. Wilson Observatory, 19151935.
Just past the cash desk to the left in a darkened
nook is the introductory audiovisual, which sets
out the museum’s history and its objectives:
The Museum of Jurassic Technology traces
its origins to this period when many of
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the important collections of today were
beginning to take form. Many exhibits
which we today have come to know as
part of the Museum were, in fact, formally
part of other less well known collections
and were subsequently consolidated into
the single collection which we have come
to know as The Museum of Jurassic
Technology and thus configured, received
great public acclaim as well as much
discussion in scholastic circles. […] Like a
coat of two colors, the Museum serves dual
functions. On the one hand the Museum
provides the academic community with a
specialized repository of relics and artifacts
from the Lower Jurassic, with an emphasis
on those that demonstrate unusual or
curious technological qualities. On the
other hand the Museum serves the general
public by providing the visitor a hands-on
experience of "life in the Jurassic."
A very clear mission statement, and certainly
more informative than those of many museums.
The visitor then is prepared to encounter the
collections themselves. The narrative continues:
The Museum, however, not content to rest
on its laurels, kept pace with the changes
in sensibility over the years. Except for the
periods of the great wars in this century
(when twice portions of the collection
were nearly lost) the Museum engaged
in a program of controlled expansion.
Walking through the Museum, the visitor
experiences, as it were, a walk back in
time. The first exhibits encountered are the
contemporary displays and reaching the far
end of the Museum, the visitor is surrounded
by the earliest exhibits.
One of the extraordinary museums in America is a cabinet of curiosities:
David Wilson’s Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles.
Founded in 1987, the museum has already been
the subject of a book by Lawrence Weschler in
1995 entitled Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder,
which describes in detail a large number of the
museum’s permanent exhibitions, so to do so
again would be redundant. The museum adds
displays continuously, and new installations
include an exhibition of the work of the 17th
century Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher,
The World is Bound with Secret Knots: The
Life and Works of Athanasius Kirche; The
Lives of Perfect Creatures: The Dogs of the
Soviet Space Program; and a charming Russian
tearoom— a scaled down model of a Russian
Imperial study.
at the expense of rival systems, the public
emphasis in our culture has remained largely
on answers, rather than on questions. This
emphasis, however, masks the real nature of
scientific investigation. Whereas scientists
themselves labor in their laboratories trying
to make sense of the messy and puzzling
phenomena they study, the public has been
presented with a picture of science that
advances steadily towards the truth, never
making mistakes. Nearly all modern museums
had a mission to educate the public, and
historically, implicit in the museum’s mission
is that it presents the truth—that the objects
presented and the interpretation they are given
represent the latest in scientific and scholarly
What makes the Museum of Jurassic
Technology exceptional is not only its
permanent exhibitions, which are in themselves
extraordinary, but its overall argument. The
Museum of Jurassic Technology is a critical
museum in the post-modern, post-structuralist
sense: it calls into question the fundamental
assumptions on which most museums are
based. The Museum of Jurassic Technology
describes itself as a natural history museum,
and traces its history to Noah’s Ark. As such, it
claims the authority of science. The authority
of science depends on witnessing. The history
of witnessing goes back many centuries, and
became of fundamental importance as the
claims of a nascent experimental science had
to supplant the claims of rival systems such
as alchemy, geomancy, and neo-platonic
cosmology. Imperfect observation was central to
experimental practice, but public corroboration
of results was essential for science to triumph
over its rivals.
Because of this need to claim public authority
Letters to Mount Wilson Observatory. Courtesy of Diane Perlov.
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What makes the Museum of Jurassic Technology exceptional is not only
its permanent exhibitions, which are in themselves extraordinary, but its
overall argument…. it calls into question the fundamental assumptions
on which most museums are based.
(continued from page 89)
References:
Choate, J. (1880) Inaugural
speech. New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art.
Goodman, N. (1980). Speech
delivered at meeting of American
Association of Museums. See
also Weil. S. (2003, November/
December). Beyond big and
awesome: Outcome-based
evaluation. Museum News.
Retrieved February, 2011 from
http://www.aam-us.org/pubs/mn/
MN_ND03_OutcomeBased.cfm
Hudson, K. (2001, Fall) Charm
and chairs: The future of
museums in the 21st century.
Journal of Museum Education,
26(3) 3-9.
Postman, N. (1969, November
28). Bullshit and the art of
crap-detection. Speech delivered
at the National Convention for
the Teachers of English [NCTE],
Washington, D.C.
Postman, N. (1993). Public
lecture to the Canadian Museums
Association.
Weschler, L. (1995). Mr. Wilson’s
cabinet of wonders: Pronged ants,
horned humans, mice on toast,
and other marvels of Jurassic
technology. New York: Random
House.
On the one hand, the Museum of Jurassic
Technology is a museum connoisseur’s museum.
The exhibits are intricate, fascinating, and
painstakingly created, and the labels small and
densely written, just barely legible, in the best
museum tradition. The lighting is dramatic:
pools of light in dark spaces proclaim the
importance of the artifacts displayed under
glass. Its exhibitions recall the dusty and
mysterious museums we remember from our
childhood and employ all the techniques in
the museum professionals’ armory. The dark
spaces, dramatic lighting and labeling of the
museum all proclaim the museum’s authority
and the veracity of its exhibits, which include
stink ants, mice on toast, and an Amazonian
bat imprisoned in a block of lead. On the other
hand there’s a catch: in the Museum of Jurassic
Technology the improbable is probably true, and
the likely is likely to be false—and nowhere will
you ever be told which is which. The Museum of
Jurassic Technology is much more than a mere
curiosity—it is a ‘critical’ museum. These are
no longer modern times, but post-modern ones,
and the Museum of Jurassic Technology is
its museum.
The value of the Museum of Jurassic Technology
is that it carefully separates the ‘what’ of
knowing from the ‘how’ of persuading. In a
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research. Seen to be neutral and authoritative,
the museum insists on the unquestioning trust
of its visitors.1 Neil Postman once proclaimed
museums to be sacred spaces—the “temples
of our times,”(1993) and debates such as those
surrounding the exhibition of the Enola Gay
at the Smithsonian in 1995 show the extent
to which museums are still expected to be the
voices of absolute authority. There is little
place for debate, contingency or doubt in the
modern museum.
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world of increasing complexity, the importance
to distinguish fact from rhetoric is a much
needed skill—akin to Neil Postman’s famous
reprise of Ernest Hemingway, who when asked
if there were one quality needed, above all
others, to be a good writer, replied, “Yes, a
built-in, shock-proof, crap detector” (1969). It
is a museum that fulfils Nelson Goodman’s
belief that
the museum has to function as an
institution for the prevention of blindness
in order to make works work. And
making works work is the museum's major
mission. Works work when, by stimulating
inquisitive looking, sharpening perception,
raising visual intelligence, widening
perspectives, and marking off neglected
significant kinds, they participate in
the organization and reorganization of
experience, in the making and re-making
of our worlds. (1980)
The Museum of Jurassic Technology reminds us
of the importance of our critical skills. It invites
us to question, to challenge, to reject the world
of truths we are daily presented with by Fox
News, ‘reality’ shows, political campaigns, and
of course, museums.
1
Of course, museums have always served rhetorical ends, and
increasingly museums are created to espouse specific political
and cultural arguments—which include championing specific
identities, proclaiming specific theories and asserting specific
values. Starting in the mid-19th century, the museum’s
political masters also had a strong interest in defining
national interests, and in using the museum’s pre-eminent
position as a pulpit from which to proclaim the truths of
national identity. The modern museum preached the truths
of the grand narratives—Manifest Destiny, the superiority of
Western culture, the onward march of Progress, the Triumph
of the Will. To visit a great museum was to situate oneself in
a fabric of common achievements—and more importantly,
common goals.
The Museum of
Jurassic Technology—
Appreciating Life in
the Lower Jurassic
by Diane C. Perlov, Ph.D.
S
hortly after the Museum of Jurassic
Technology (MJT) opened in 1989,
my husband Dale, our 6-year-old
son Noah and I paid our first visit to this
extraordinary museum. The MJT is a
maze of narrow, winding hallways, with
countless alcoves and mini-galleries. It
has that intimate, claustrophobic feel of
someone’s home that has been converted
into a museum. The environment is the
same throughout, although some galleries
are markedly dimmer than others. Visiting
the MJT took me back to my childhood
memories of losing myself in the dark, musty
corridors of the old De Young Museum in
San Francisco. The MJT revived all those old
senses; the worn carpet and the walls that
seemed to close in on you as you explored
deeper and deeper into the museum. As I was
closely examining a micro sculpture of Pope
John Paul II that was no wider than a human
hair, created by artist Hagop Sandaljian,
Dale slid up beside me. “This place creeps me
out,” he whispered. From somewhere on the
other side of the wall I heard Noah whimper,
“Mama, I’m scared.” It seems the MJT has
this effect on some people.
However, outside of my immediate family,
the MJT has a devoted following in Los
Angeles and internationally. Its founder
David Wilson was awarded a MacArthur
Foundation fellowship in 2001. When the
Letters to Mount Wilson Observatory. The top letter is from Edward and
begins "To Whom it may concern. This is to certify, That I have found the
key To all Existence." Courtesy of Diane Perlov.
MJT was going through economic hardships
a few years ago, renowned members of the
LA culture scene came to the rescue, as did
museum professionals from around and
outside the U.S. to save the beleaguered little
museum with the big name. In assessing
the Museum the question that has nagged
me from the beginning is: How does this
unconventional museum with the irregular
open hours, and which is sandwiched
between storefronts and locked behind a
barred door, draw such passionate fans?
The MJT has been described as an 18th
century wunderkammer created in the 20th
century (1995). Yet the MJT is not a random
collection of curiosities. While there is no
linear flow or explicit connection between
various galleries, two major themes run
through its displays:
Exhibits at the
MJT challenge the
nature of belief.
Exhibits at the MJT challenge the nature
of belief. Without irony, obscure and
bizarre scientific explorations are presented
next to micro-artwork such as a Flemish
landscape carved into a fruit pit. Presented
in a traditional museum format, each display
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that it cannot be, enables us to escape the
narrow limits of our horizons. Below are two
of my favorite exhibits that exemplify this
approach particularly well:
Letters to Mount Wilson Observatory 19151935. Displayed in wood frames like 19th
View of Tell the Bees exhibit and entry to library. Courtesy of Diane Perlov.
(continued from page 91)
How as a society
do we select
and retain
certain kinds of
knowledge and
discard others?
begins with a plausible hook and draws you
into a story that as it proceeds becomes less and
less tethered to your known world. At a certain
point in the storyline you lose your initial belief
and question everything you’ve been told so far.
You not only wonder if anything in this museum
is true, but you are likely to contemplate what
you even mean by truth: Why do I believe some
things over others?
There is a vast amount of wondrous
knowledge and competing worldviews
available and ripe for experiencing, and
conventional museums present only a
fraction of it. Displays throughout the museum
contain volumes and volumes of complex
information—knowledge that would not be
found in any conventional science or natural
history museum. You pay attention, and
appreciate the sheer volume and extraordinary
nature of theories and knowledge you were
previously unaware of. How as a society do we
select and retain certain kinds of knowledge
and discard others? Who makes these decisions?
While the MJT celebrates the triumphs
of scientific exploration, it challenges the
orderly world we have created from them. To
paraphrase an audio excerpt from the MJT: A
novel phenomenon, something so extraordinary
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century shadow boxes, more than 30 original
letters cover the walls of the closet-sized
gallery. The letters come from ordinary people
from around the world and are written to the
scientists who manage the space observatory
at Mt. Wilson in Los Angeles. Some letters
contain praise and solicitations. But most
describe theories, observations, and knowledge
that the writers seem desperate to pass on. The
cumulative effect of all this is staggering. The
viewer is surrounded by voices echoing off each
other, voices that we never hear from, a mass of
diverse ideas that would otherwise be lost. What
ideas do we choose to save and what do we
choose to discard?
Geoffrey Sonnabend’s Theories of Forgetting.
Several dioramas and exhibits weave a narrative
tale of the life and work of Geoffrey Sonnabend,
an early 20th century neurophysiologist. The
story starts with his father’s engineering work
in Argentina and returns there as the location
where Geoffrey had his scientific breakthrough
for his work on obliscence (theories of
forgetting). The final exhibit explains his
complex theories of forgetting which were a
departure from conventional memory research.
Like other exhibits at the MJT, the story draws
you along a twisted path until you scarcely
know what to believe. Where did he lose me?
How do I know what and who to believe? But
you hang in there because Sonnabend’s proposal
—that memories are just an illusion—rings
hauntingly true. Plus there is an intimacy to
While the stories and topics draw you in,
the environment keeps you off-balance.
the audio track and you listen as if you were
hearing from Sonnabend’s original lecture. As
with the Letters to Mt. Wilson, I came away
with a palpable feeling of loss, not only for my
own elusive memories, but for this relentless
scientist and author of an innovative theory of
forgetting that was itself largely forgotten. What
is the role of museums and other institutions
in preserving certain knowledge and in making
those selections for us?
The Trick Is in the Doing of It
As they say, the trick is in the doing of it.
One could have the most fascinating objects
and thought provoking stories and still not
make a compelling museum experience. What
makes the MJT successful is the museum
collection and display strategies that can
apply to any museum.
A Good Story Well Told
Each exhibit starts with a hook—an
extraordinary find. Most have an audio
narrative, where a story is woven by an
authoritative and patient narrator. The story
includes both academic complexity and
revelations about the character’s feelings, health
and family dramas, as if told by a learned
professor who at any time will go off on a
fascinating personal tangent. An exotic story
about South American bats starts as a story
about an anthropologist following up on a
rumor about “a small demon which the local
savages believe able to penetrate solid objects.”
Tell the Bees starts with Duck’s Breath—a duck
breathing life into an afflicted child’s mouth—
and proceeds to display every folk remedy and
belief our mothers told us and many more.
The combination of a hook, engaging script,
and authoritative narrator are just some of the
elements used by master storytellers.
From the exhibit Garden of Eden on Wheels, this is one of several coffin-shaped cases displaying
collections from Los Angeles area mobile home parks. Courtesy of Diane Perlov.
Someplace Special to Go
As soon as you enter the MJT you know you
are in a strange place, a place richly textured
with sights and sounds that could not be
replicated by a virtual tour. In addition to the
dark, narrow hallways, floral wallpaper, and
wainscoting, you instantly smell the musty
corridors of knowledge and the rich Georgian
tea and cookies being served in the upstairs
Tula Tea Room. The MJT is also an emotional
experience. While the stories and topics draw
you in, the environment keeps you off-balance.
You’re constantly lost in the maze of hallways
and not sure what’s around the corner. Many
of the galleries are so dark you need time to
adjust your eyes to the exhibits dramatically lit
within. The mystical Eastern music and voices
coming out of corner speakers add to the otherworldly feeling. This push-you-off-balance and
pull- you-into-the-stories extends throughout
the museum, leading you on, keeping you on
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In sum, I find the MJT good to think with…. Even incomprehensible
things can be presented to trigger powerful associations and bring new
insights.
(continued from page 93)
your toes—making it an emotional and placespecific experience.
References:
Weschler, L. (1995). Mr. Wilson's
cabinet of wonders. New York:
Vintage Books.
One Voice, Many Speakers
The MJT has one voice, albeit many speakers.
The voice in every case is one of academic
conviction and authenticity, and comes in an
earnest whisper directly to your ear. There is
no alternate perspective assessing the work or
mediating how it should be understood. You feel
as if you are hearing directly from the source or
the temple priests.
Creating Intimacy in a Crowded Place
Intimacy is created by the voice as well as the
setting. The exhibits have a certain preciousness
to them. It is as if you are entering a temple
of knowledge and meeting the people who,
working against all odds, have painstakingly
collected, saved, and displayed these amazing
things so that you could learn from them. Rich
Victorian floral arrangements and live ferns
decorate hallways. Alcoves decorated like altars
present objects like rare jewels—on pedestals
within cases lined in satin or silk and lit with
pinpoint spots. The MJT has an advantage in
creating intimate experiences because it is so
small. You’re lucky if four people can fit around
any one display. Yet I have been in many small
galleries that fail to use their lack of space to
such an advantage.
Owning It
Exhibits that connect with something we
already know empower us. It helps us hardwire
and expand our learning. Tell the Bees
encourages viewers to share their own special
knowledge of folk wisdom. Garden of Eden
on Wheels displays the stuff (china cups, dolls,
bottles) collected from LA trailer parks and
mobile homes. This is knowledge that many
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people have grown up with, that they know
and own. Having it elevated to a museum
display gives them an opening to expand on
this information and share it with others.
Making the Familiar Strange and the
Strange Familiar
Like good artwork, many of the MJT exhibits
take something familiar—like a barking coyote
—and let you see it in new ways. Conversely, by
placing something peculiar (like an incoherent
letter to Mount Wilson) in a familiar context,
you gain a framework within which you can
better understand it.
In sum, I find the MJT good to think with. I
sometimes go there when I am in a creative
rut or I need to find a solution to a difficult
problem. From time to time, I need to be
reminded that there is a wondrous breadth
of knowledge and a variety of theories in the
wide world. Not all theories are good theories
and not all information makes sense. But even
incomprehensible things can be presented to
trigger powerful associations and bring new
insights. The fact that the MJT does this so well
is a testament not only to the artistry of this
unconventional museum, but to its effective use
of some traditional museum practices that we
can all benefit from not forgetting.
The Secrets I Own that
David Wilson Made
by Nina Simon
T
he first time I visited the Museum of
Jurassic Technology, I was sixteen.
My boyfriend Philip had suggested we
meet there, and so I drove over the hill, parked,
and walked through a strange little door on
a crummy, desolate block of the West Side.
Well, not really walked through; I probably
spent ten minutes walking around in front of
the building, trying to figure out where I was
supposed to go and whether the thing was
open and what kind of thing it was. This was
1997 and a weekday; at the time, before the
MacArthur award, the Lawrence Weschler
book, and a string of press, the Museum was
even more mysterious than it is now.
I finally bolstered enough confidence to enter,
not knowing I'd need a good deal more courage
to navigate the galleries and find Philip reading
quietly in a library tucked away in a corner. Set
against the genial blast of Southern California
sunshine, the Museum of Jurassic Technology
squats in unassuming dimness. The entry
transition is otherworldly, like entering a casino
run by the dead.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology includes
many masterful presentations. The eerie
brilliance of the stereoscopic flowers, floating
like ladies in white in a dark lake. Ricky Jay's
"failed dice," mocking beauties that tease out
doubts about chance and chemistry. The myth
of the Deeprong Mori, which is probably the
simplest and most captivating object theater I've
ever seen.
But for me, the Museum is less about any one
exhibit than the feel of the place, which is more
powerful than I've experienced in any other
museum. The Museum of Jurassic Technology
is an art installation. It is funny, strange, and
most of all, immersive: the winding halls, the
assemblage of funny and gorgeous and oddly
dull presentations, the cascade of bells and
religious holograms lurking in the back. And
these days, with the second floor open, there's
The MJT has a small library (and piano) in the back. Courtesy of Diane Perlov.
the surprise of the tearoom, where Diana
Wilson, wife and museum cofounder with David
Wilson, may pour you a cup while her small
dog pads around the room. The whole place is
a kind of floating castle of oddities, lulling and
provoking in equal measure.
I've had the distinct pleasure of introducing
many people to the Museum of Jurassic
Technology, both from the museum world
and outside. It's made me realize how keenly
personal the experience is. Some people are
disgusted. Some think it's funny. Many use
the word "unsettling." Some people love the
exhibits I find dull, like the meticulous dioramas
of trailer parks or the story of likely-fictitious
and certainly obscure memory scientist Geoffrey
Sonnebend. Some people want to explain the
place, and books like Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of
Wonders (1995) help them. A warning: if you
like your magic mysterious, don’t read this book
before you visit, and maybe not after.
But for me, the
Museum is less
about any one
exhibit than the
feel of the place,
which is more
powerful than
I've experienced
in any other
museum.
It’s ironic that a museum that engages in almost
no advertising is one I ardently proselytize
for and promote to others. John Falk’s recent
research focuses on how museums can succeed
when they help visitors express their personal
self-concept. Philip and I were artistic, smart
kids, and for me at least, the Museum of
Jurassic Technology did something many
museums aspire to do: it made me feel cool.
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(continued from page 95)
References:
Weschler, L. (1995). Mr. Wilson’s
cabinet of wonders: Pronged ants,
horned humans, mice on toast,
and other marvels of Jurassic
technology. New York:
Random House.
The Museum
of Jurassic
Technology does
"safe danger"
better than any
science exhibition
on risk.
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I had something other people didn't. I would
bring friends there, and like Philip did with
me, I preferred to hide in the galleries and let
them step into their own private worlds of
the museum on their own terms. I was proud
to show them the secret that had so shocked
and energized me. The Museum of Jurassic
Technology is probably the only museum in
the world where I'm saddened to see crowds
of visitors, not because I want to hoard the
museum experience, but because the unsettling
power of the Museum is diminished if you can
see ordinary people like you when you walk in
the door.
I often hear curators and educators in art
museums say something like, "great art isn't
about an easy viewing experience. It shakes
you; it unsettles you." But the truth is, with
the exception of a few rare single-artist shows
or installations, the standard art museum
exhibition is not set up to provoke or unsettle.
Maybe they want you to learn, but not to feel
uneasy or lost or afraid as you do so. The
Museum of Jurassic Technology makes me
feel all those things, and every time I walk in,
it's an opportunity for me to explore how I've
learned to embrace and revel in those feelings.
I feel ownership over the Museum because my
experience there is so wholly mine. And every
time I go, I'm reminded of those fears inside of
me, that I don't know how to do it, might not
get it, might get lost or confused or upset.
The elegant stairway with velveteen walls leading up to the Tula Tea
Room. Courtesy of Diane Perlov.
The Museum of Jurassic Technology does "safe
danger" better than any science exhibition on
risk. And for those who embrace it and learn
to love it, the experience becomes a totem of
what is possible. I discovered the Museum at a
very particular time as a teenager when I was
constantly encountering new surprises and
assumed there must be many other places like
this in the world, secret gardens or cabinets
or doors stuck in the middle of the city that
lead somewhere else. Fifteen years later, I’m
saddened by how few delicious secrets other
museums have to offer. I don’t want to see
a hundred cheap rip-offs of the Museum of
Jurassic Technology, made powerless by cheery
labels or bright light or the unceasing desire to
make things educational. I want to experience
and design mysteries, and wonder, and above
all, spaces that let visitors breathe in constructed
secrets and adopt them for their own.